About The Jack Dunn Stories

As stated on the home page, this web site is the repository of information, remembrances, pictures, and stories I have collected with the cooperation of Jack Dunn and others, concerning his life time in full scale aviation. A similar site could be created about his lifetime in model aviation -- he has lived two lives in one! Where possible stuff about model aviation has also been included.

Please keep in mind the following when viewing the video recorded stories on this web site:

It is very difficult for anyone to just "remember" things out of nowhere. The brain works on "relativity". It has to be lead to a remembrance by a thread of another thought. As you know from conversations with others, it is common for you or others to say "Oh, that reminds me...". So asking Jack to just remember something interesting about when he was a Hellcat pilot in "the war" or his years at Lockheed is a very difficult thing to do. For that reason, while videoing Jack, I would let him ramble on with the recorder running, just so he could find his way through his memory circuits. My intent was to edit out all but the "interesting stuff". The problem being that most of what Jack talked about was interesting! Thus making the editing process more difficult!

Jack is a modest person. He is the epitome of a southern gentleman. Talking about himself is not a comfortable thing for him to do. This is compounded by the fact that there are things about World War II that Jack does not want to remember or discuss. For example, Jack never mention whether he had shot any Japanese planes down during his tours of duty in the Pacific. After about 10 years of knowing Jack, I finally worked up enough courage to ask him if he shot anybody down. He said yes, and held up seven fingers. I said "So you were an Ace then?" He shrugged his shoulders. I said, can you tell me anything about them? He said "no", while looking down at the floor. Then when we got into the video taping of stories I explained to Jack that people would be interested in hearing about the shooting down of planes. Jack let me know that he wouldn't be talking about that.

At the time of video recording, Jack was almost 90 years old, and while his memory for the most part is excellent, it is not perfect. There would be occasions when I would bring up a story he had related to me in earlier years (that was usually a spin off from the topic at hand), and Jack would be unable to recall it for the video interview. So keep in mind this web site is not an "all inclusive" thing -- it's more like a "sampler".

Post Script:After having Jack "vet" this web site for accuracy I went to his house for feedback and ended up sitting in his den visiting with him for over an hour. I notice there were seven pictures on the wall that I hadn't scanned in. One of them was a great picture of him flying a Galaxy C5 over a football stadium in Atlanta. Another was of his 1929 Kinner. As we visited I realized there were at least a dozen more video hours of stories in him! For example, we really never got into his glider experiences, like when he set the cross-country distance record. He told me about how and why C5 Galaxy #1 burned up, and of some close calls as a test pilot for Lockheed. While using this web site, please keep in mind that it is more of a "sampler" than an "all about Jack". One thing for sure, the experiences Jack has had in his aviation career will not be repeated again. To have lived out the progression from biplanes to jets, carrier combat in WWII, development of the C-130 Hercules and C5A Galaxy airplanes, the world of antique airplanes, radio controlled models, and on and on makes Jack a very special person indeed! :o)

=======================================================================NOTE: THIS WEB SITE IS NOT FORMATTED FOR SCREENS SMALLER THAN 10 INCHES, SUCH AS MOBILE PHONES.=======================================================================

If you wish to contact Jack Dunn by email, send your message to me and I will forward it to Jack after vetting.